


Such a Devotion of the Heart

by MerryHeart



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Gen, References to Jane Austen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryHeart/pseuds/MerryHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her Fridays usually conclude with drinks. Most weeks, good or bad, she drinks with Sloan. After very bad weeks she drinks with someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such a Devotion of the Heart

            “I’m Will McAvoy, goodnight.”

            “And we’re clear,” Mackenzie sighs. _Thank God_ , she thinks as she removes her headset. She goes to her office to grab her things, quickly says goodnight to Maggie, and is out the door without giving Sloan a chance to ask if they’re on for Hang Chew’s or Will a chance to even see her. She’s hailed a cab and is on her way home before he’s even done changing.

            She stares out the window of the cab and does calculations. She may still have to subtract on her fingers, but there’s a continuum she keeps in her head, a ratio or percentage of how many times over the course of the week she wanted to push Will into a wall and kiss him versus the number of times she just wanted to push Will into a wall. This week was exactly fifty-fifty. One day he’s giving her a small smile and she catches him staring, the broadcast is flawless and she watches him become the best version of himself onscreen as she whispers in his ear almost the way she used to in bed and they are _so_ good together she’s sure they must be going _somewhere_ good. There are other days when he’s irritated, when she’s frustrated, when he snipes at her and she snipes back and she just wants to strangle him and _how_ did she _ever_ think he was on the cusp of _forgiving_ her?

            Some weeks are good and some weeks are bad and she can deal with that, usually with Sloan and scotch. This week was exactly in between, and that makes it the worst type of week, and she deals with that another way.

            She kicks her shoes away the minute she walks into her apartment, throws her purse down, unbuttons her blouse as she walks toward the bathroom, where she sheds all her clothes and wishes she could shed the week with them. She takes a shower that violates all principles of water conservation, a luxury she enjoys all the more for having been in Afghanistan for three years. She slips on her nightdress and a robe and swipes a book from her shelf before padding to the kitchen to pour her first glass of wine.

            Tonight, she’s drinking with Jane Austen.

            The book is _Persuasion._ It’s not her favorite Austen novel, but it’s the one she’s read most often. She first read it in Afghanistan, where, like Kipling’s Janeites, she read Austen to stay sane in a war zone. She read it at least four times while she was away, and still reads parts on nights like this, when she’s just needy enough, just wounded enough.

            _Persuasion_ reminds Mackenzie of her and Will, even though she’s not much like Anne Elliot (except when she is) and Will’s not much like Captain Wentworth (except he used to be, a little, and sometimes she still sees it, the warmth, the gallantry). Anne broke off her relationship with Wentworth when her stand-in mother advised her that the match was ill-advised for both of them. Wentworth went away with a broken heart and Anne proceeds to be very unhappy for eight years until their paths cross again and the two lovers are reconciled.

            Mackenzie starts at the beginning, but on her second glass of wine she begins to skip around, unsure if she’s looking for her favorite chapters or the passages that remind her most of her own story.

            _“He could not forgive her…”_

Her eyes linger for a moment on the phrase before she pours herself another glass of wine.

            _“A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman!—He ought not—he does not.”_

            The words blur a bit; she’s not sure if it’s the wine or her tired eyes. She skips to the last few chapters because she’s beginning to nod off and she needs the reassurance of a happy ending before she gives herself over to sleep and the dangerous realm of dreams.

            _“I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you…broke it…years ago…”_ She mouths the words to herself. _“I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been…For you alone I think and plan._ ”

            She closes the book and rubs her eyes. Thirty feet from the life she could have had, like Anne Elliot for most of the novel. She nearly puts the book on the nightstand and turns out the light without reading the last chapter, but she decides that she needs the dénouement, the tying of loose ends and uncertainties, and she’s thankful no one else knows that this is how she spends some Friday nights, too emotionally invested in a story that so obviously mirrors her own.

            She reaches the last page and snaps the book shut with a finality she wishes she could give her own life right now.

            She loves Will. It’s him or no one; she knows that now. She’s like Anne Elliot and she’s not, because she knows she will wait as long as necessary but she refuses to sink to permanent low spirits and she will take none of his bullshit. She switches off the light and lies back on the pillows with a soft _thud_. She expected to go to bed soothed, or even hopeful, but instead she is determined, and she’s not entirely sure why. She will be the heroine of her own story, she decides as she drifts in the twilight between awake and asleep, and she may get her happy ending yet.


End file.
